We've been working hard in the hope of releasing these Limited Edition Box Sets before Christmas. However, as our research and production has progressed, the projects have grown and grown, and we just can’t say no when another eleventh hour opportunity arises to include something special. We want to do these classic titles justice, which means we won't be able to meet our original release dates. We will be finalising new dates shortly which will be announced here first, along with the full specifications and special features. We believe that the end products will justify the wait and we hope you'll agree.

I'm surprised "something special" came up for all three, but I've got my fingers crossed for the Yutkevich cut of The Colour of Pomegranates +/- the rushes that were broadcast on RAI.

Amazon and Second Sight's own site continue to reflect the original dates. Has there been any update?

THE COLOUR OF POMEGRANATES: LIMITED EDITION BOX SET. Thanks for your support as we put together the best possible release for this classic film. Pleased to announce that we also now include the ‘Yutkevich Cut’, using The Film Foundation’s restored materials, plus the 60 minute documentary, ‘Parajanov: A Requiem’, in addition to all the features we have already announced. Release date is 29th January 2018.

The question of color timing is very complicated with this film, I think due in part to its release history.

The only thing I can say, if it is helpful at all, is that the vintage (but not too badly faded) print of the original Armenian version that I saw on a few occasions years ago had a different look compared to the Yutkevich version. I saw the Armenian version first and was immediately struck by the difference in color when I saw a newer print of the Yutkevich version not long afterwards. I wouldn't necessarily expect the two versions to look the same.

One of the challenges associated with this film has always been the poor quality film stock available to Parajanov and his cinematographer, Suren Shahbazyan. Parajanov complained about this both in telegrams and to individuals while he was working on the film. I suspect that must have an impact on what anyone is able to do with the film, restoration-wise. That said, as I have noted elsewhere, the World Cinema Project restoration has brought out colors and textures that I have not seen before.

It's not only the tealness but the overall pale yellow aspect with milky blacks. Even without reference, it compares with just so many other colour restorations graded by Bologna that at this point, there is no need for comparison references anymore. It's something I wrote recently about in the 100 Years of Olympic Films, for instance, where the gradings performed at Bologna can be guessed without even looking at the restoration credits, just because the overall color-grading speaks for itself. Caps like the ones at the end of Beaver review (#0508, 0700 and 1022 notably) don't have comparative references but they still look like a Bologna job. It's all the more ironic to see a technical specificity popping up like "A vintage print of the film produced on Orwo stock was used to guide the grading phase." but in the end, it looks no different than stuff that have nothing to do with Orwo stock or Russian film stock stories.

As a whole, it has already be discussed here and there multiple times, but it really seems more and more urgent that their grading methods are looked into. How many colour movies that never looked the same before will Bologna need to grade this way for the industry do something about it ?
This is becoming the "HD magenta push", and we're now several years into this.

I suppose that Costa writes more about the industry than people like us who, technically, are mostly outside the industrial decision makers.

The only direct industry-related people I can think of who have explicitly criticized their grading method are Camera Obscura. But even so, they explained they had to re-do the grading afterwards, not that they discussed this point with Bologna in order for them to just not do the grading this way in the first place. Even Arrow went the hidden way to re-do the Olmi's grading, but without stating directly why they felt the color-grading from Bologna was so incorrect it needed to be deeply modified.

jsteffe wrote:I've never seen a print of this film with deep blacks, and I think it would be a mistake to use conventional wisdom in judging its look.

It's not a question of using "conventional wisdom in judging its look", but a question of why despite having a seemingly very specific look, it actually looks the same than many other Bologna restorations, making it not specific at all anymore.

If Pomegranates ever had a specific look, it now simply looks very similar to the 2 Hunebelle movies I've seen from Pathé recently, some gialli Arrow released like Your Vice is a Locked Door or Argento's Deep Red, The Tree of Wooden Clogs, Dragon Inn, or 2 of the Olympic Games movies. What's the rationale for this ?

Bologna are pretty much the only ones to do this (Eclair does it, but it's visibly a different LUT table though yellow is also pushed), in a way that no matter how unique the look of the movies they're restoring, they all end up looking the same.
You can't recognize the movies' photography specificity anymore. The only visible signature is the lab's one. Are Bologna the only ones in the world to be given movies that originally looked this way ? I doubt it. Very highly.

Ribs wrote:I can't be the only one who just really doesn't care about individual restoration houses

It’s not a question of individual restoration house, it’s a question of having faithful restorations, full stop.
Currently, I strongly believe that most (if not all) the movies graded this way by Bologna simply aren't vastly unfaithful when it comes to color gradings, and it feels important enough so that the concerned titles are pointed out for this in the same way that, say, an incorrect AR should be pointed out.

Ribs wrote:something that will never change

It might be a naive thing, but in some ways, I refuse to overlook this because we, at our level here, are unlikely to have this changed in the very near future. However, not saying anything will certainly won't have this change at all.

But if some feels it's an issue to discuss this in each concerned disc (which is understandable), I'm happy to have my post moved in a dedicated topic and centralise the discussion there.

MichaelB wrote:I know, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m wondering what this “older review” can possibly have been.

Swo17 summarizes my intention. Reading that part of the review just gave me a chuckle since I make similar mistakes in the technical writing pieces I do for my grad program. Apologies if I wasn't clear!